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by x.xOracles.Shadowx.x
Summary: "Emily Prentiss was looking at him, Rossi noticed, and he wondered when he'd died and why no one had told him." - RossiEmily, ReidHotch. T for language.


**AN: Hey, everyone. **

**So, like most, I adore Criminal Minds, and when Elle left the show, I needed to find another brunette to idolize/ be for Hallowe'en. Emily Prentiss was not the character I'd hoped for, but she was an interesting and fun addition to the team. At first, I was hoping for her and Morgan to get together (that died out pretty quickly. MorganGarcia ftw), but then they introduced Rossi and I fell in love with them. There was nothing definitive, but she and Rossi would be fantastic! **

**So, after learning the bare minimum about 'Lauren' and the plot details from that, I came up with this one-shot. (Along with a healthy dose of H/R because, holy crap, Reid and Hotch blow my mind.) I don't know all of the details from why Emily had to fake her own death, or how/ if the team catches Doyle, but I'm operating under the assumption that he will be/ has been caught at some point. So, if anything is off, please forgive me. **

**I think that's about it. Please bear in mind that I own nothing, and that this is my first CM fanfic so I'm a little nervous. I hope I did them proud. **

**Enjoy!**

David Rossi was a lot of things (Most of which shouldn't be said in polite conversation, if one was to listen to his ex wives.). Arrogant, an egomaniac, selfish and out spoken, but sentimental wasn't one that normally made the list. Sure, he wanted to find the monster who'd beaten the parents of those three kids to death, and it had been what had driven him since the day he'd had to walk away from the case, but he wasn't the type to get misty eyed on anniversaries or keep photo montages.

And, while he seemed a little stand offish, he was protective of the people he cared about. He just did it in his own way; he wasn't Jason Gideon, ever the patient teacher. He preferred to let people figure it out on their own and to be standing on the sidelines when everyone was on the same page as he was. When it came to people he really cared about, though, he could find the patience, even when the people involved were steps away from making him bash his head against a wall. Ergo: The whole Aaron and Spencer thing. Neither man was stupid, so _why_ was he the only one who could see what was so blatantly obvious?

It must have been a team thing because the same could be said for Morgan and Garcia. They were so in love it was disgusting but both were wandering around in a fog, oblivious of the truth. (He felt a little sorry for Kevin and wondered if there was something in the drinking water that made the brightest minds in the world oblivious to one another. He knew it was probably nonsense, but he still brought his own water from home, just to be safe.)

No one on the team knew him better than Hotch, mainly because they were genuinely friends, and because Hotch could see through his bullshit faster than Rossi could think to drudge it up. Whenever anything remotely personal came up, Rossi would instinctively search for someway to avoid the conversation, most often settling on a verbal distraction (read: Lie.). Unfortunately, Hotch was almost always the one asking. Hotch just had to give him that look – the look that he gave an unsub who was trying to lie his way out of an interrogation, that hard, cold, 'I can see right through you so finishing that thought would be a very bad decision' stare, the one that had made Reid positive that Hotch was going to go toe to toe with Chester Hardwicke– and Rossi knew he had to stop talking because to Aaron Hotchner, silence was better than a lie.

So, when David Rossi, one of the greatest profilers in the known world (According to everyone who'd read his biography, anyway. He was sure anyone who'd met this team would think he was just okay.), came into work with pure misery etched onto his face, flowers in his hand and dark bags under his eyes, Rossi knew Aaron would be understandably worried and confused.

He felt Hotch watch him from where he stood next to the skinny genius they'd all grown to love and knew that he'd share a confused look with said skinny genius. As the two looked at each other, Rossi didn't even have to look to read the silent conversation going on there:

_'Is Rossi dating someone?'_

_'No, we'd have known.'_

_'So what's with the flowers?'_

_'I don't know. Do you want to ask him?'_

A flat look, and Aaron sighed in resign.

_'Fine, fine. Stay here, I'll do it.'._

He heard Hotch stand up from the desk and somewhere inside of him, he smiled. Even on this day, he was anticipating the day when they'd finally wake up. The fireworks would be phenomenal, and he may or may not have a stash of popcorn hidden away for just such an occasion. (What? Rossi knew Hotch; the man had the patience of a saint but what that ran out, all bets were off. Rossi knew, by the slight tic in Aaron's jaw muscle and the look in his eye as he walked away from the doctor that said patience had just about run it's course. His breaking point wouldn't be long now, and Rossi would bet that it would happen soon, that it would happen at work, and that it wouldn't be subtle. Aaron never was.)

Rossi walked straight past them, ignoring Hotch's questioning look, and paced over to Emily Prentiss' old desk. He heard Hotch stop mid step behind him when he put the flowers on Emily's desk (It was still Emily's desk to him. That would never change.). Ever since her death, this was the one topic he and Aaron had never discussed. Rossi didn't know why they'd never talked about it, but he was thankful. Even six months later, losing her was still too painful to think about, let alone speak of.

"Dave...", Aaron said behind him, and Rossi could read the surprise in his voice. The older man rolled his eyes. The information had blindsided the unit chief. Really, Aaron? How could this man profile and get into the heads of the most twisted psychos this side of the Meridian, but be so damn blind to the hearts of the people he saw every day?

"Six months ago today.", Dave said in reply. "I already dropped some flowers off at her grave but I couldn't not bring some here as well." That was as good as an admission to Aaron, but he could still see the shock that was playing across his friend's face.

"You loved her." That's what he loved about his best friend; things were very rarely said as a question with him. He either knew it or he was damn close to figuring it out so he didn't need to ask. The way that man's mind worked scared Rossi some days, but now, he was just glad he didn't have to explain it.

"Drop the past tense, Aaron.", Dave said quietly. He smiled sadly, hearing Reid walk over to stand next to Hotch and knew that JJ - who was there visiting the team - and Morgan were watching. "If it weren't for Doyle..."

"Doyle is rotting behind bars, Dave.", Reid told him softly. That had been a black day for David Rossi. It had been at the end of a routine kidnapping case when he saw the man who'd killed Emily or Lauren or whoever the hell she was run from an abandoned warehouse that had gone up in flames. He'd put every ounce of energy he had in his entire body into his legs and he ran. He could hear Morgan and Hotch running behind him while Reid covered their back, but he didn't stop running until he'd run down Ian Doyle. He threw him into the back of a police car, Doyle's eye black and his nose broken, and no one said anything about the forty five seconds between when Hotch and Morgan found their teammate, or about where the blood on Rossi's knuckles had come from.

"Putting that son of a bitch behind bars did a lot of good but it didn't bring her back. And God, do I miss her." That had been his focus for months; he'd used every contact he had and some he didn't want to admit to to find out where Ian Doyle was. It had been his reason for getting up in the morning, and with Doyle in jail for good (Hotch had made sure that he wasn't ever getting out. No matter how good Doyle's lawyer was, Hotch was better. He was downright scary in the court room.), he had nothing but the unsubs the team chased and the team itself – Such as it was with the loss of Emily and JJ - to keep him going.

Hotch was almost painfully silent and if Rossi had been looking for it, he'd have seen the flash of guilt that had tripped across both Hotch and JJ's faces. Reid did see it but didn't comment, thinking he'd bring it up later. JJ walked up to them and he watched the look of concern that flitted across her face. She looked at Hotch, who gave her an equal look back. JJ's face almost crumpled, and tears came to her eyes. "Hotch, I think it's time.", she said to Hotch, who glanced down at his shoes then nodded.

"There's something we need to tell you, and I understand that most of you will probably be angry with JJ and I-" The look sent to Rossi told him that he was the one who'd probably be angry, though from the wary look JJ sent Reid and Morgan, he guessed he wasn't the only one. "But try to understand the position we were in, and why we made the decisions we made."

"Hotch? JJ, what's going on?", Reid asked, and Rossi considered it a bad sign that JJ was almost ready to cry.

"Spence... I'm so sorry I couldn't tell you.", JJ apologized as tears slid down her face. Reid's eyes went wide and he pulled his best friend into a hug. She held on tight and cried. "I came here today to.. .God, I am so sorry..."

"Jayje, it's okay. Just tell me what happened.", Reid insisted softly, his arms wrapped around JJ's shoulders and his chin resting on the top of her head. Hotch looked away and avoided eye contact with both Rossi and Morgan, waiting until JJ's sniffles died down.

"There's no easy way to say this so I won't. I need you all to come up to my office, there's something... someone, you need to see.", Hotch answered, and he gave Reid almost a desperate look as he turned and lead them up the stairs to his office. Reid kept his arm firmly around JJ on the walk up to the office, and Rossi could read the anxiety on Morgan's face as he waited for Garcia to join them.

Once the entire team had been gathered in Hotch's doorway, the man himself turned to them. "Be as angry with JJ and I as you want, just... try to remember why we did what we did. If there was another way to have done this, I swear to you we would have.", Hotch told them. Rossi felt his stomach plummet to his shoes when he saw the outright worry on his best friend's face. If Aaron Hotchner looked apprehensive and worried at whatever was behind that door, Rossi wondered if their firearms would be necessary. From the way Morgan kept Garcia behind him and his free hand on his gun, and the way Reid kept his arm tight around JJ, he wasn't the only one following that thought process.

"Aaron, what the hell is going on?", Rossi asked. His best friend didn't reply, he just knocked on the door to his office three times. Through the shutters, Rossi could see a figure moving from the chair in front of Hotch's desk, and when the door swung open, Rossi could swear that his heart stopped.

Brown eyes were looking at the team with tears spilling from them, and he could hear silence building up behind him. The dam broke as Garcia tried to make a start on a sentence, then Morgan's exclamation of shock while JJ cried into Reid's shoulder. The genius had tears forming in his own eyes and his arm was wrapped around JJ, an expression of shock etched into his face. Only Hotch and JJ looked unsurprised at the presence of Emily Prentiss. Emily Prentiss, who'd died on an operating table, was standing in front of him wearing a sweater, jeans and sneakers, her hair pulled back into a pony tail. Emily Prentiss, who they had buried and who's grave stone he'd gone back to that morning and cried over, was standing in the doorway to Hotch's office.

Emily Prentiss was looking at him, Rossi noticed, and he wondered when he'd died and why no one had told him. He looked at Aaron, who was avoiding all eye contact as he watched Reid's mind try to figure out what was going on here. He had to have died. There was no way in hell Emily could be standing right in front of him if he hadn't died. Unless he had died and this was hell, just a very customized version of it. He waited, expecting Emily's face to morph into an unsub or a victim he couldn't save or, hell, even one of his ex wives. But it didn't. Emily's eyes and nose and mouth and ears and cheek bones and everything, they remained exactly the same.

"How-?", Morgan began to ask, the words dying in his throat.

"With Doyle on the loose, I needed to vanish. If I didn't, Declan would have died and I couldn't let that happen. So, I did the only thing I could do.", Emily explained, her voice catching. Rossi could see it on her face and hear it in her eyes that she was nervous about being there. She was nervous about being near the people who'd been her family for almost five years in case they didn't accept her. "Don't be mad at Hotch and JJ, they were just doing what they needed to do. I couldn't get away without their help."

"Why didn't you ever tell us?", Reid asked, looking at Hotch and his voice sounded so young to Rossi's ears that he almost forgot that Reid was 30. The betrayal in his voice made Hotch wince.

"I begged them not to. I knew that Doyle would be watching to make sure I was really dead, and I didn't want to take the chance that he would go after one of you. I thought, the fewer people who knew, the better. I didn't want to put you in any more danger.", Emily explained. "I'm so sorry."

Rossi felt the shift in the air seconds before Reid exploded. "So you told Hotch, who has a son, and JJ, who is the mother of my godson, and put them both in danger? Emily, we could have protected you. We would have done anything to keep you safe, you know that!", Reid insisted, his eyes angry. "Do you have any idea what the past six months have been like for us? We thought you were dead, our hearts were breaking, Emily!"

Emily looked like he'd just slapped her and despite the fact that he agreed 100% with what the young genius was saying, he still wanted to protect Emily from the anger that was coming her way. "I know, JJ and Hotch told me. And I would have come back sooner but I thought-"

"You thought what?", Rossi asked. Emily's face went paler by the second, and she looked back at Rossi. She looked small and scared and those were two things he normally refused to associate with Emily Prentiss. She was never scared, and if she was she didn't show it.

"I thought you all had moved on... I didn't think I needed to come back because you didn't need me anymore.", Emily said quietly, speaking only to Rossi. What was left of Rossi's heart broke at that, and before either of them knew what was coming, or could question it, Dave had pulled Emily into a hug and held her to him. He felt her rest her head between his head and his shoulder and there were suddenly tears pressing into his skin.

"Don't ever think that. I've needed you more in the last six months than you will ever know.", Rossi told her, wrapping his arms around her. He knew what it looked like and sounded like, and from Emily's pause which lasted all of a second and a half, she understood what he was saying. It wasn't the first time he'd said to hell with the frat rules (as JJ had once said, most of them existed because of him), but it was the first time the idea of the other party turning him away had actually terrified him.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Dave... I didn't know... I didn't or I would have told you...", Emily sobbed, her hands clutching at the back of Rossi's shirt. He felt like he could breathe again.

"You're back now, that's what matters.", Rossi answered. "You're back home with us again. Unless you're planning on leaving and this is just a last goodbye." The idea hit him like that house hit the Wicked Witch. Dave felt panic take root in his stomach and knew that if she was leaving that day, so was he. There was no way he was letting Emily Prentiss walk away from him a second time.

"I'm here for good.", Emily promised, and even if he was wrong and she didn't mean 'here' as in in his arms, he was content to lie to himself for a little while longer. She smiled through the tears and looked at the team, seeing the anger fade away with only shock and the beginnings of happiness forming on their faces. Garcia broke between Dave and Emily and pulled the brunette into a hug.

"We've missed you so, so much, my girl.", Garcia told her, her voice catching while the two rocked back and forth where they stood. Emily closed her eyes and returned the hug, the last few teardrops sliding from her eyes. When Garcia released her, she looked to the rest of the team.

"I've missed you too, all of you. And I'm not going anywhere. I'm finally home again.", Emily promised, just as uncertainty filled her eyes. She looked at Reid and Morgan, both of who still had shock and slight anger on their faces at the deception. (Reid's anger, Rossi noted, was focused entirely on Hotch, who seemed to know he was in trouble. Rossi smirked; not even officially together yet and Aaron is already in the dog house.) "That is, if you guys still want me here?"

Morgan and Reid exchanged glances, and Reid smiled at Emily. The doctor left JJ's side and met Emily in a hug. "Emily, we've wanted you back since the day we lost you. Welcome home.", Reid assured her, letting her go only to see her get pulled into hug from Derek.

"We've missed you, Emily. You gotta stop scaring us like this, my heart can't take it.", Morgan told her, pulling a laugh from her.

"I'll be more considerate next time, I promise.", Emily told him.

Rossi couldn't help but smile while the rest of the team surrounded Emily so she could tell them what she'd been doing in the six months since she'd been gone. He leaned against the railing outside of Hotch's office and felt more than saw Aaron join him. He glanced at his old friend and pretended not to notice that the SSAIC was watching the skinny genius more than he was watching Emily.

"You didn't tell me you loved her.", Aaron commented quietly, seeing JJ wrap an arm around Emily, who already began to look like she had before her faked death. The fear and the uncertainty had left her expression, and Dave shook his head, his eyes never leaving the group before him.

"Because until the day I thought she died, I didn't realize I did.", he answered. One of Dave's eye brows rose up. "And you never told me you loved him."

"Because I wasn't ready to admit that to myself, never mind to you and certainly not to him.", Aaron sighed, bringing a smirk to Rossi's face.

"How long?", Rossi asked.

"Since Hankel..." Hotch didn't need to say anything else. Rossi hadn't been there for that case but he knew that Reid had struggled with a drug addiction on his own in the aftermath of it. He also knew that it had torn Hotch apart, watching a member of his team suffer like that. "You?"

"Since minute I saw her, I knew she was someone wild horses wouldn't be able to drag me away from. Does he know?", Dave asked.

"Does she?", Hotch returned. The two were silent for a moment, then the both of them grinned. "No more secrets?" Hotch held out a hand, which Dave took.

"No more secrets.", Dave agreed, then sighed when he saw Emily and Reid discussing something with JJ laughing between them. "This is going to cause hell for the both of us, you know."

"I know.", Hotch agreed, nodding next to him with his arms over his chest. The sound of Emily and Reid laughing at some story Morgan was telling, along with Emily's bright eyes as she laughed and Reid's shy smile and flailing hand movements as he fought to tell the story in a more accurate light. The SSAIC and the head profiler just smiled. "But, I think I would safely say that the risk is more than worth the reward, wouldn't you?"

"I would have to agree with you about that.", Dave answered. It would bring all manner of hell down on both of them – Especially when Strauss found out that her arch rival was having inappropriate relations with his very male subordinate. He figured he and Emily wouldn't even be a blip on the radar, though he had been wrong before. Strauss could be kind of a frigid bitch like that.

But as Rossi watched Emily, she turned and smiled at him, and damn if it wasn't the happiest smile he'd ever seen light up her face. He smiled back, refraining from rolling his eyes when Hotch asked Reid for a word out in the hall for a minute, and knew for a fact that he may've died, but this wasn't hell. He had his family, alive and safe, and the woman he loved had come back from the dead. This was home.

**AN: Aaaaaand scene. So, so much love for RossiEmily. I sincerely hope they become canon in season seven, and that JJ comes back to the team for good. **

**That's it! Forgive any inaccuracies, I haven't seen the episode so I've had to make do with what other amazing writers have provided in their stories. (I'm half way through season two at the moment, so yeah... Might take me a while to get caught up.) Hopefully you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. **

**Questions? Comments? Concerns? Lemme know. The next one I publish for this fandom will probably be an Elle/Gideon (because I love them), or the first chapter of a multi chapter I've got going that will be Reid/Hotch (because I'm a nerd like that, and I love them). **

**Thanks for reading! Much love,  
>Oracle. (L) <strong>


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